The Cutting Room Floor
by ncfan
Summary: Professor Xavier was wanting to talk to Magneto about Wanda. He didn't realize when he went to see him that he'd end up talking about both of his children instead. [Set five years pre-series.]


[Content Note/Trigger Warning: Discussion of mental illness, parental neglect, bigotry]

I'm kind of hesitant to finally pin down in my fanfic that, yeah, Wanda is mentally ill outside of her powers making it difficult for her to function. I didn't really want to because I don't want to feed into the stereotype that mentally ill equals violent, given that someone who is mentally ill is more likely to be the victim of violence than the perpetrator. But she reads as mentally ill to me in Evo, and assuming that the hospital Magneto sent her to isn't some completely corrupt institution that can be paid off into accepting patients who really don't have any legitimate reason to be there, my suspicion is that the Evo writers do mean for her to be mentally ill. But I did not pin down exactly what it is she has, again, because of the stereotype.

Also, a note about Pietro's characterization: This is about five years pre-series, so he isn't really the huge jerk he is in canon yet.

I own nothing.

* * *

"Please wait for me out here, Ororo," Charles said with a sigh, after she helped him out of the car and into his wheelchair. He shot a look at the house they had parked in front of. It was unassuming enough in appearance: a narrow two-story with a covered porch, a small front yard and a wooden fence concealing the back yard from view. Bizarrely (or perhaps not so bizarrely), it was wheelchair-accessible, there being a slope rather than steps up to the front door. "I don't think I'll encounter any danger inside." Though there was likely to be an argument, and not one he was relishing.

Ororo shot him a look of deep misgiving, but after a moment, she nodded and climbed back into the driver's seat of the car. She'd keep an ear out, Charles knew that. It wasn't necessary, not for this (at least, he didn't think so; he'd forgive Ororo for being more suspicious), but oddly, Charles found her vigilance comforting. It was good to have people upon whom he could rely.

He wondered if the one he was coming to visit could say that much.

Charles wasn't trying to read anyone's mind today. He wasn't doing anything like trying to sense who was around him and who wasn't; while he was here for a bit more than a social call, he knew better than to suppose he was going to face any danger today. Charles didn't suppose Erik to have sunk so low as to booby trap his house, especially considering who else lived inside.

Charles was in no way attempting to discover who was inside the house and who wasn't. He knocked on the front door and expected to be greeted by Erik Lehnsherr, whom he needed to speak with. He was _not_ expecting to be greeted by eleven-year-old Pietro Maximoff, who stared at him with eyebrows raised, and then gazed beyond him at the car with a decidedly dubious expression on his face.

Surprise must have registered on his face for at least long enough for Pietro to notice. Somehow, Charles doubted that Pietro's light frown would have deepened into the defensive scowl that flickered over his face if his surprise hadn't been noticeable. Maybe he should have at least tried to discover who would answer the door. But then again, Erik would have noticed immediately if he'd tried to enter his mind, even if only to scan the surface thoughts. That likely would have sabotaged this conversation before it could even begin.

As it was, Charles forced a smile onto his face, hoping to at least put the boy at his ease. "Pietro, isn't it?" he asked, despite knowing very well what Pietro's name was. "Is your father home?"

Pietro shook his head, more a twitch than an actual shake; there was something strange about it. "Nope."

"Do you know when he'll be back?"

"Uh-uh."

There was something guarded there, in the boy's voice, in the way his blue eyes flickered from Charles, to the car, and then back to the man who sitting before him in a wheelchair, wearing what was by now an entirely too reasonable smile. Charles quickly went over in his head which questions might end with the door being slammed in his face, which might make Pietro panic, and which might put him at the ease that had become even more remote. He might try a scan of Pietro's surface thoughts, but not yet.

"May I come inside?" Surely there was no harm in asking that—but a split-second later, Charles remembered the way Scott or Jean would have reacted to being asked such a question under such circumstances, and could barely keep himself from slapping his own forehead. It would have been better to have simply conducted this conversation on the porch. It was a warm evening; it would have been fine to stay out here.

And indeed, the look that stole over Pietro's face—and did _not_ disappear just as quickly, not this time—was one of deep distrust, the same as what would have appeared on Scott or Jean's faces if they were alone in the mansion and an adult at the doorstep had asked if they could come inside. "I'm not supposed to let people I don't know in the house when Father's away," Pietro pointed out. He began to edge back into the house, his gaze flickering again, this way and that.

"But you do know me, Pietro." Charles affixed a reassuring smile onto his face. "I'm an old…" He nearly said '_friend_' "…colleague of your father's. My name is Professor Charles Xavier. We have met before, remember? It was a few years ago…"

Pietro frowned, now standing between the cracked-open door and the frame. He stared searchingly into Charles's face, for a moment looking all the world like Jean when she delved into someone's mind—Pietro was probably about a year younger than Jean and Scott, not that it mattered, but it certainly was something to think about—until something flashed behind his eyes. "Yeah, I remember. It was when Wanda…" He paused for a moment, a spasm jerking at his mouth. "…It was when Wanda got her powers." Pietro slipped inside, and held the door open so that Charles could follow.

Charles and Erik had a polite agreement regarding the fact that the latter kept a house in Bayville and (ostensibly) lived there. So long as Erik didn't stage his latest scheme in Bayville, so long as he didn't go about trying to recruit mutants in Bayville, Charles would ignore the fact that he was living here. Circumstances had led them to stand (so to speak) on opposite sides of a _very_ deep gulf, but there was no need to drive the man out of his home. Charles always hoped that, some day, he might at last be able to persuade Erik of his own point of view; burning bridges would not help in that regard.

Despite this, Charles had only been in the house Erik owned in Bayville once before, four years ago. Compared to that occasion, the house was in a much better state. Charles distinctly remembered the crunch of broken glass beneath tense or nervous feet. It looked like Erik had replaced the broken desk lamps too, and the picture frames that had fallen to the floor in splinters or ceramic shards.

"_Wanda has always had a horrible temper. Well, perhaps it would be better to say…" Erik paused. No, it wasn't a pause. He honestly looked lost for words. He stared at the wreck of the living room, and seemed to age decades in a moment. His shoulders sagged; the deep, furrowed lines at his brow and around his mouth grew deeper, heavier. Charles couldn't remember ever seeing him look so tired, so _old_. He reached out a hand, to do what, he didn't know. Comfort or steady or prop up. It didn't matter; Erik waved his hand away sharply. "…It would be better to say," he finally said, "that most of the time, Wanda is a fairly timid child. But when she becomes angry, her rage is enormous. She becomes like… Well, like a force of nature. Even before her mutant powers emerged, tonight."_

And once again, Wanda was the reason Charles was here.

"So, I'm a mutant now too." Pietro's voice broke the silence. "Well, I guess I was _always _a mutant, but we found out that I'm one about a year ago. It was really cool. I mean, it was really _weird_, but it was really cool too, and I was glad, since Father and Wanda are both mutants and I didn't want to get left out." Was it normal for a child to talk so quickly? And Charles had to fight to keep his amusement from showing on his face. Apparently, Pietro had decided that he trusted him, for whatever reason (probably had something to do with Charles informing him of his and his father's past relationship), and had gone from barely volunteering any information to arguably volunteering too much. "Do you want to see?" Pietro asked breathlessly. He stared expectantly at Charles.

"Oh, yes, of course."

At that, Pietro ran up and down the stairs, across the living room and the kitchen, out the back door and into the backyard, and then came back to stand in front of Charles. Twice. All in the span of about five seconds.

Charles's eyebrows shot up. Cerebro must have been down for repairs again when Pietro's powers manifested; he'd been having troubles with the system lately. "That's quite impressive," he told him sincerely.

Pietro did something then that Charles hadn't been expecting. He _grinned_.

And then, Charles began to wonder exactly what it was about Pietro that had struck him as Pietro not being a particularly happy child.

"So why are you looking for Father?" Pietro was starting to root through the living room, obviously looking for something, though only God knew what. A book sitting on the arm of the couch got its pages flipped and was unceremoniously thrown to the floor. A few moments later, he lost interest and went to stand in front of Charles again, leaning against the back of the couch.

Here it was. "It's about your sister."

And just like that, Pietro's open expression shut down again. His eyes did not grow guarded so much as they became downcast; Pietro stared down at the floor, not meeting Charles's gaze. He did not twitch, or fidget, or squirm. He just stood still, perfectly still. "Oh." After a long moment, Pietro looked at Charles out from under his eyelashes, and asked, "How… How is she?" The tone of Pietro's voice was painfully tentative.

Charles sighed. There was no use lying. "Not well, Pietro."

"Oh."

He might have been able to do a bit more for her if he had found out about Wanda's hospitalization _when it happened_. No, actually, Charles was quite sure that he could have been able to do more for her if he had been informed that Wanda had been institutionalized two years ago. But he hadn't, and now, in the state that she was in, allowed to stew and trapped in the care of people who had no idea of how to help her, there was little Charles could do at present but try to pick up the pieces of her mind.

_I could have made a difference if he had just told me what had happened two years ago. I could have helped…_

This had been a tragedy of errors, but it was no use getting angry now. There was only one person standing in front of Charles, and whatever Pietro might have done in his eleven years of life, he was not responsible for anything his sister had suffered. He was not responsible for the state she was in now.

Wanda had been left to fester, alone, in a mental hospital. The hospital staff had only contacted Charles when it became clear to them that they could not handle Wanda by themselves any longer. The restraints they used to keep her from using her powers were only effective if she was almost completely confined. The medicines they gave her in the attempt to keep her calm were ineffective; behavioral therapy had been abandoned long ago. Charles had taken one look at the hospital where Wanda was being kept and would have considered it suspect at best even for patients who did _not_ also possess out-of-control mutant powers. With a patient like Wanda, they were always one step from being completely overwhelmed.

Erik had described her as a timid child, generally well-behaved when not in the grips of rage. Charles saw nothing resembling what her father had described in Wanda now. That Wanda had had no visitors since being hospitalized had not helped matters. Not at all.

But since Charles could not discuss any of this with Wanda's father, what he needed to do now was determine when he would return, so he could discuss it with him. "Pietro, I need to speak to your father about Wanda. Do you have a phone number I can use to contact him?"

Pietro shook his head. "No. He calls me, not the other way around."

That… was absolutely _not_ what Charles wanted to hear, for more than one reason. _But what are you to do if you _need_ to contact your father? _"I… see. And when was the last time your father contacted you, Pietro?"

The boy shrugged, flicking a strand of silver-white hair out of his eyes. "A few days ago." He spotted the professor's disapproving expression, and Pietro's shoulders arched defensively. "Hey, he's better about keeping in touch than he used to be. Used to be I wouldn't hear from him _at all _when he goes off."

Charles took a deep breath. _You've already put him on the defensive; mind your tone. _"Pietro, I do need to speak to your father. Do you have any idea where he might be? I can take it from there."

He had been trying to be gentle, to not be too blunt, but Pietro's face grew guarded nonetheless. "Uh-uh. I don't know," he said simply.

"Please think."

Charles decided to risk a look at Pietro's surface thoughts. If he did know where Erik was, it was likely that the location would come to mind when Charles prompted him, even if Pietro didn't want to share.

The most he could determine was that, true to his word, Pietro had no idea where his father was. Beyond that, Charles received no information that he could readily decipher without Cerebro's aid. Looking inside of Pietro's mind was like looking at the contents of a fruit smoothie as it was being worked on by a blender. His thoughts were fast and jumbled, impossible to disentangle from one another. Charles supposed that, with time, as he accustomed himself to this mind, he might have been able to make more sense of it, but for now, he had barely any idea of what he was even looking at.

_Ironic. Magnus wears that ridiculous helmet because he doesn't want me reading his thoughts, but his children can keep me out without even trying._

"I told you; I don't know."

"…Pietro… How long has it been since you last saw your father?"

Charles prayed that the answer would be "a few days" at the most. He could handle "a week," though he'd be lying to say that it would have made him happy. Erik loved his children; Charles knew he did. The man was not terribly adept at communicating his love, but he did love them. For all that Erik was becoming increasingly consumed with his plots, his plans, Charles liked to think that he still remembered that he was also a father, that his children were young and still needed him. He liked to think that Erik hadn't grown so out of touch that he had forgotten that.

Pietro shrugged, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Haven't seen him since… I think it's been five weeks now."

Over a month.

He was angry. There was no denying it, and apparently no hiding it either, if the way Pietro's brow knit and he edged away a few steps was any sort of indication. Charles tried not to let his temper get the best of him, no matter the circumstances; he worked primarily with children, scared, confused children, and losing his temper or becoming frustrated with them would not help them. But he didn't like hearing these types of stories. Not at all.

For now, Pietro's well-being had to take priority. "Get your things," Charles told him firmly, resisting the urge to press his hand against his forehead. "You are staying with me until your father comes home; I don't want you staying here by yourself."

But Pietro balked. "I can take care of myself," he protested, taking a further step back from the professor.

"Pietro, I am currently the caretaker of two children not far from your age. I would not allow them to stay alone for so long a time and I will not allow you to do the same."

"I'm _fine_." There was a quality to Pietro's voice that was not insistent so much as it was faintly wheedling, even desperate.

"What if you get sick?" Charles pointed out, as gently as he could manage. "What if you get hurt?"

"Really, I'm _fine_," Pietro insisted. "I don't get sick." A lie, even if Charles wasn't using his telepathy; he had never known a child, even one who was a mutant, who never got sick. "I don't get hurt." Another lie; frankly, mutant children were _more_ likely to get hurt than normal children. "I can take care of myself. Father leaves money for food; he always comes home before I run out of food. I don't mind. I'm _fine_."

At that moment, a few things Charles had noticed began to add up. He stared long and hard at Pietro, who fidgeted incessantly under his scrutiny. It seemed he would be having a serious talk with Erik about _both_ of his children, instead of just Wanda. But for now…

"Alright," Charles relented, and Pietro relaxed so quickly that it was like watching a balloon deflate. "But—" Charles took a small notepad out of his breast pocket and tore a page from it, writing his name and phone number down on the paper "—if by any chance your father does not return before you run out of food, or…" He smiled weakly. "…Or if there's anything that you need, anything at all, please call me."

He held the slip of paper out to Pietro.

After a long moment of hesitation, Pietro's hand shot out, and he stared at it, frowning.

-0-0-0-

"Threatening to call the police was a tad excessive," Erik remarked, glaring at him even as he handed Charles a coffee mug. "Don't you think?"

In the end, Charles had managed to track Erik down, though he would be lying if he was to say that it had been as easy as it would have been if not for that (still quite ridiculous-looking) helmet. However, Erik's activities tended to leave quite the trail in newspapers and news stations. By now, Charles was well-acquainted with what to look for.

It was another warm, muggy evening, and it was the third time that Charles had been inside of the Lehnsherr residence. This meeting was no less charged than the first two, though for different reasons. "I don't think it was excessive, as it happens," Charles retorted, taking one gulp of the coffee before reaching for the cream. Erik always did take his coffee far too bitter for Charles's tastes. "You left an eleven-year-old boy by himself for over a _month_. That is the sort of thing it would be reasonable to involve the police in. I don't care how self-sufficient you think Pietro is; he is _not_ old enough to look after himself."

For whatever reason (Charles was not going to try to divine the answers by looking inside of Erik's mind. He knew that wouldn't end well, and there was also the principle of the thing, as if saying "I trust you to be honest without me forcing the issue."), Erik did not acknowledge most, or even nearly any of what Charles had just said. Instead, he looked to the staircase. "Speaking of whom," he murmured. "What is it, Pietro?"

In an instant, Pietro was down from the staircase and standing at his father's side. He was holding a basketball in his hands, was wearing a barely noticeable hopeful expression. The boy spared a glance at Charles, brow furrowed, before turning his attention on his father. "I was going to play basketball with Evan and his friends?" There was no way for it to escape Charles's notice that this was framed more as a question than a statement.

"Have you finished your homework?" Erik asked him sternly.

"Yes, sir."

"Leave it here on the kitchen table." Erik prodded the table with a finger for emphasis. "I want to see it."

About ten seconds later (Charles could only suppose that Pietro had had to go searching through his backpack or something like that), Pietro returned with a few pieces of paper clenched in one hand. He laid them down on the table and stared expectantly at his father.

Erik sighed slightly and nodded. "Alright. Be back by eight."

Pietro didn't need to be told twice. He sped out of the door, and was gone.

Once Pietro was out of the house, Erik turned his attention back on Charles, raising an eyebrow. "Now, I believe you wanted to speak with me about Wanda?"

"Yes." Charles straightened in his wheelchair. "I wanted to speak with you about Wanda."

"How is she?" Though the question was identical to the one Pietro had asked, in his face, Erik could not have resembled in his son any less. He met Charles's gaze squarely, almost as if daring him to enter into his mind. Charles could actually remember Erik daring him to go into his mind, back in the days when they still worked with one another; of course, they'd usually been a bit drunk by that point in time, given that Erik would never invite _anyone_ into his mind while sober. However, there was some quality to his voice, some barely perceptible shake, that indeed put Charles in mind of Pietro.

However, in comparison to what he'd felt to hear such from Pietro, Charles could not find nearly as much sympathy in his heart for whatever worry Erik might feel over Wanda. Not under the circumstances. "Perhaps if you were to go visit her—perhaps if you _had_ visited her at all over these past two years, you would know how she is."

Erik set his jaw, nostrils flaring. His ceramic coffee mug hit the table with a sharp clink. Charles had apparently hit a nerve, though he knew also that this wasn't so difficult, if one knew exactly what Erik Lehnsherr's sore spots were. "There is nothing I can do for her; I don't see what difference my presence or absence in her life could make at this point."

_It won't do to lose your temper_, Charles told himself carefully, _even if he is being deliberately obtuse. _"I think it would have made a difference," he said quietly. "It would have made a difference, for Wanda to have believed that her father did not abandon her. I fear that it is too late for you to make such a difference for your daughter, now."

Two years ago, Wanda might have responded positively to the idea of seeing her family again, her father and her brother. Actually, Charles was quite sure that she would have; he had known few children from loving families who would not have desired to see their family again after a long absence, and he doubted that Wanda was any different. But alone, with only the doctors who were at a loss for how to help her, Wanda was left alone with her thoughts, alone with her overwhelming anger. In those two years, though she rarely spoke of it, though the thought rarely floated to the surface of her jumbled mind, Wanda had come to blame her father for her predicament.

And why shouldn't she? It was her father who had had her institutionalized, with no forewarning. Her father who had sent her away with no words of comfort, who had said not a word when she screamed and begged him not to leave her. Her father who had left her in that hospital, and had never shown his face there, not once in the past two years.

Why shouldn't Wanda blame her father for her situation?

Erik glared balefully at Charles; behind him, the hands of a clock mounted to the wall twitched and faltered, before grinding to a halt. "I could never make a difference for Wanda," he ground out, and it came out sounding as much like the admission of a penitent before a priest as it did a defensive retort to a line of conversation he found uncomfortable.

"Nevertheless, to shut her away, to let her think that you that you viewed her as a—"

"As a freak?" Erik's tone was so bitter that, for one moment, Charles wouldn't have been surprised to see him spitting acid. "Do you think it was easy for me?" His voice rose. "Do you? All of humanity brands us freaks for our gifts; do you think, for even a moment, that I would gladly do the same?! She… I tried as hard as I could." And here, the frustration was self-evident. "But it wasn't enough. Is that what you wanted to hear? It wasn't enough, and I was forced to shut her away behind walls like I thought she was the freak humans believe mutants to be. Is _that_," he spat, "what you wanted to hear?"

Obviously, Charles had found another sore spot, and had hit another nerve. While what a parent could do for their child was often a source of pride, what they _couldn't_ do for them was often their greatest source of shame. In Erik's case, it seemed to be that the so-called "Master of Magnetism" was helpless to fix his daughter's problems.

_If only he could have shown that to Wanda's face._

Charles watched as Erik clapped a hand to his forehead and shut his eyes. Once again, as four years ago, Charles had the impression of watching someone age decades in an instant. It was no physical change this time, brought on by stress. It was the enormous tiredness of a long life already heavily dotted with failure and loss, and much of this related to family. He was reminded of one of the few memories he was able to divine from Wanda's mind.

"_Daddy?" Her voice was tremulous and small. "…Am… Am I a freak?"_

"I was going to say 'a disappointment,'" Charles corrected him, and this time, he was able to find it in himself to feel sorry for him. "But with all of what you have said in mind, why did you not come to me _first_? I could have tried something, _anything_ that would not have necessitated putting her in a mental hospital." He did not share with Erik, not yet, that Wanda had since been diagnosed with certain illnesses that would actually justify being institutionalized. Charles was still trying to sort out how much of that was influenced by her ill-controlled, volatile powers.

Erik didn't answer him, and Charles remembered the emotion that most often precipitated shame. "How is she, Charles?" he asked instead, dragging the words out as though they were painful to him.

_Of course. Asking me for help would have had to involve admitting that he couldn't do a single thing to help his own daughter. Going to visit Wanda would have had to involve staring down his failure every time he looked at her. And if ever he thought that, for his daughter's sake, he should put aside his pride, he seems to have thoroughly quashed that thought. He's not the one who suffers most for that, but he can't seem to see it._

_Magnus, I see that you are still behaving true to form._

Charles sighed. "I was contacted a week ago by the hospital in which Wanda is kept. They are at their wit's end trying to deal with her, but one of the doctors there is an old friend of mine who is aware of my mutant powers and my past dealing with the mentally ill. She is the one who referred Wanda to me."

"And?"

"And…" Charles decided to tell Erik at least part of what the hospital had "determined" about Wanda. "…And they have attempted to give her medication to help her deal with her anger, with her… _instability_."

"Let me guess." The timbre of Erik's voice was surprisingly bleak. "It's had absolutely no effect."

Charles stared at him. "How did you know?"

Erik leaned back in his chair and smiled humorlessly. "Wanda has always been terrified of taking medicine. When she got sick as a little girl, I would have to plead with her to take her cough medicine or to swallow the pills. And _then_ I would have to plead with her not to spit the cough medicine or the pills out. She was, I think, afraid of the effect they had on her. Once her powers emerged, every last bit of medicine I ever gave Wanda when she was sick or hurt stopped having any effect."

"A secondary mutation?" Charles asked sharply. That would be an interesting avenue to pursue. If Wanda had a secondary mutation, that might be affecting how her visible powers manifested, and it could also be affecting her control over them.

But Erik shook his head. "No, Charles, not a secondary mutation. My suspicions are that Wanda's powers have something to do with probability—I'd noticed certain patterns repeating themselves during her outbursts," he explained, spotting Charles's uncertain gaze. "She doesn't _like_ medicine, Charles. She doesn't _want_ it to work. And if Wanda doesn't want the medicine to work, whether consciously or not, she uses her powers to keep the medicine from working."

Charles nodded, grimacing. He would study Wanda's powers, if the hospital permitted it, in the attempt to discover if Erik was correct. If he was, it probably would explain a great deal of what Charles had seen Wanda do when she wasn't being restrained. Either way, once Charles had a better idea of exactly what it was Wanda was doing to the world around her when she made glass break and walls crack and the whole building shake, he would have a better idea of how to treat her. He hoped. "That might explain some of what I've seen," he said. "As for right now, I'm attempting the psychic therapy I have used on others in the past to help them with their own troubles. It may be a while before I'm able to make any progress, though." _If I am able to make any at all, _Charles thought, but did not say. "Her mind is singularly difficult to work with."

Singularly difficult was probably simplifying the matter. Wanda's mind, from thoughts to memories, was a jumbled mess. It likely made perfect sense to her—Wanda didn't have any trouble comprehending the world around her that Charles could see. He wondered if this wasn't a result of her powers, or even if the hospital hadn't been correct when they had decided that there was a reason she needed to be there beyond her out-of-control powers. Charles had never known a normal human who also happened to be mentally ill to have such a confusing mind. Every mind was different, of course. He was sure that, given time, he could accustom himself to Wanda's, and he would understand it better then.

To that, Erik nodded shortly. "Thank you, Charles," he muttered.

The expression that flitted over his face was vaguely akin to misery. If he could have, Charles would have ended the conversation here. He wasn't in the habit of kicking people (so to speak) when they were down, not unless the alternative was letting something far worse happen. But as it happened, he was afraid that something worse _would_ happen if he didn't broach the other issue at hand here.

So he said, "I was also wanting to speak with you about Pietro."

"What about him?" Charles would be lying if he said that the way Erik's demeanor suddenly changed—from almost relaxed to guarded—didn't hurt him. "I have warned him to be careful about using his powers in public; as much as I don't _like_ the idea that we have to hide, I don't want him to get hurt if some lunatic with a gun catches sight of him and decides that a _freak_—" he was nearly spitting yet again "—needs to be put down."

Charles did not flinch, but he did not like to think of exactly what Erik—Magneto—would do if some "lunatic with a gun" decided to kill his son. "That's not it, Magnus. I am concerned about the long hours—days, _weeks_—you seem to be spending away from home. I am concerned about what that does to your son."

Erik narrowed his eyes. "I don't follow."

_You know exactly what I am talking about. _It was all Charles could do not to say this aloud, or to project that thought into Erik's mind (Erik being slightly less averse to the idea of telepathic communication than the idea of mind-reading). If he didn't know better, he would have thought that Erik was deliberately trying to make him lose his temper. _Better to be blunt, though. _Charles glared at him. "Does it bother you, Erik, that your son has put his needs second to your schemes?"

Charles had expected Erik to take umbrage to this suggestion, and his old friend—colleague, and as much as Charles did not want to admit it, rival for the hearts and minds of mutants everywhere—did not disappoint him. "I beg your… I never asked him to…" No, he didn't look angry. He looked incensed. But at the same time, Charles couldn't remember the last time he'd watched Erik splutter.

Charles could only shake his head at Erik, frowning deeply. "The fact that you never _told _Pietro only tells me that, intentionally or not, you made it so obvious to him that you would continue to leave him even if he asked you not to. You have, without saying so, whether intentionally or not, made it obvious to him that if he makes a fuss about you leaving, you may well leave for good."

It was supposition. Charles could not say for sure what Pietro thought about his father's constant comings and goings. The boy's thoughts really were like the viscera of a blender, after all. But not to no good end had he worked with children (Or young adults, as Ororo had been when they had found each other). He knew cagey body language when he saw it, knew evasion, knew deflection. It reminded him of how Scott had been when he had first come to the institute, convinced that if he made trouble he'd be kicked out. This wasn't exactly the same, but there were shades of the same in Pietro's behavior.

Something like a thunderclap appeared very briefly in the furrowed lines of Erik's forehead. "What exactly has Pietro told you?" he inquired, deceptively mild.

"Very little," Charles retorted, "and that in itself concerns me. If a child has to deal with a parent's regular absences, I would expect that child to complain about it—unless, of course," he admitted, "they had entered into that particularly difficult stage of adolescence, and honestly, Pietro seems a little young for that. What if he gets sick? What if he gets hurt? What if he gets _lonely_? But Pietro complained not one bit. He was, in fact, quite anxious to reassure me that he was quite alright looking after himself for weeks on end, and that no, he did not mind at all the fact that you regularly left him alone. He's become quite adept at covering for you. He does everything he can to excuse your behavior to himself and others. Does this sound normal to you, Magnus?" he asked pointedly.

Erik had, at least, the grace to look away.

"I would be less angry if you were taking Pietro along with you on these trips of yours; at least he would not be here by himself. He might be in danger, but at least you would be there to protect him. And please understand: being a father to Pietro when you are actually home does not make up for this. If anything, it only makes matters worse, because in that case, Pietro wants to disappoint you even less, and is even more afraid of losing what relationship he has with you. So he puts his own needs on hold even further, tries even harder to convince himself that he's happy with his situation. But in reality, he's not, Erik, he can't be, and I wonder how long it will be before he stops making excuses for you and begins to resent you instead. I wonder how long it will be before he opens his eyes and sees that whatever he deserves, he deserves better than this."

For a long time, Charles had no response. Erik picked his long-forgotten coffee mug back up and began to nurse it the way a drunkard might nurse their bottle of absinthe. Charles wasn't sure what he was expecting—shouts of denial or a muttered admission of guilt. He could get either one. Erik had a way of blinding himself to the truth when that truth was inconvenient to him and yet, at the same time, not a vital truth for mutantkind. But he did love his children; would he…

"Charles…" Erik drew a deep breath, and met his gaze squarely. He needed no helmet to shield his thoughts; his face was mask and shield enough. "…Once again, thank you for helping Wanda. Thank you for expressing your… _concerns_. But unless you've not finished your coffee, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I've had a long day."

"Of course." As Charles wheeled himself out of the house, he called behind him. "You will think about I've said, won't you?"

He had no reply but the sound of the door being shut behind him.

* * *

Upon reflection, all of my fics featuring the Maximoff twins and Magneto should be subtitled "Even when Magneto isn't trying to, he still messes his kids up _bad_." And of course he doesn't want to see it with Pietro, because in comparison to Wanda, the damage is a lot more subtle, and I don't think he quite wants to face up to the fact that he managed to mess up both of his kids. Though make no mistake: I think that, even without the pressure of constantly fearing losing his relationship with his father (and then dealing with the emotional fallout when, pre-series, Magneto finally does appear to have left for good), Pietro still would have been a brash, arrogant kid, and a jerk. I just think that he would have been slightly less of a jerk.


End file.
